Phillips Performing Arts Center

The Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts opened at the University of Florida in January 1992 with three sold-out performances of Cats. Located in the university's Cultural Plaza in Gainesville, it combines a 1,750-seat proscenium auditorium with the smaller Squitieri Studio Theatre, a black-box space accommodating up to 200. Lobby and foyer areas support receptions and associated events. The centre presents orchestral and chamber music, dance, theatre and touring productions. Its early seasons included Pilobolus in 1993 and violinist Joshua Bell with the Jacksonville Symphony in 1994. These performances helped establish a programme linking international touring artists with university and local audiences. Gainesville's principal stage for touring work belongs to the University of Florida, and its seasons mix orchestral and chamber concerts with dance, musical theatre and staged opera; Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Puccini's Madama Butterfly have both been given there. A university venue of this kind carries a double duty — teaching platform and civic theatre at once — and the balance struck between the two shapes what a visiting company can expect of the building.